On a Knife Edge: Sistren Theatre Collective, Grassroots Theatre, and Globalization

In 1974, Michael Manley, leader of Jamaica’s ruling People’s National Party (PNP), announced that Jamaica “had been converted to socialism,” and an atmosphere of hope—for equality and social justice—permeated working-class communities.¹ With the government ideologically on their side, “people from the laboring poor were analyzing, making demands and being openly critical of the forces holding them back.”² As political scientist Anthony Payne has noted: “During the 1970s many black Jamaicans did come to feel for the first time that they were full members of a national community, entitled to be treated as citizens on an equal basis with others of a lighter skin.”³ This era of democratic socialism also coincided with the beginning of what Eugene Williams, director of studies at the Jamaica School of Drama, has termed the “go-go” period of Jamaican culture, when it was “bursting with confidence.”⁴ The celebration of working-class cultural forms was seen by many as an integral part of creating an independent national identity and was evident everywhere as artists embraced and reclaimed folk traditions. Rex Nettleford, cultural critic and artistic director of the Jamaican National Dance Theatre, noted that this reclamation was an integral part of the broader decolonization process: “Many of us who are now engaged in cultural action recognize that the cultural dynamics of change must go hand in hand with the political and economic thrust in a tripartite assault on the enemies of freedom, independence and sovereignty.”⁵ Bob Marley’s famous lyrics—“Get up, Stand up, Stand up for your rights”—exemplified the spirit of the time. Founded during this era, in 1977, Sistren Theatre Collective dedicated itself to using popular theatre techniques to give voice to Jamaican women’s experiences of oppression.

In a way that is strikingly similar to the establishment of the Federal Theatre Project in the United States in the 1930s, Sistren Theatre Collective grew out of a government sponsored employment program.⁶ Jamaica’s Impact Programme was one of several social programs implemented by Manley’s government in an effort to alleviate the growing problem of unemployment. After a successful first show (Downpression Get a Blow depicts the struggle of women employed at a garment factory to create a union), the women of Sistren came together to create an organization with the following goals:

Sistren will exist to analyze the situation of women in Jamaica; to promote and publicize the contribution of working class women to the development of Jamaican society in different areas of social life; to increase the awareness of gender issues among women and men and social change agencies; and to encourage cultural expression of the Jamaican people through popular theatre techniques and participatory methods.⁷

Sistren’s mission to empower working-class women through theatrical expression embraced broader cultural trends which saw the reclamation of folk traditions as an integral part of the process of cultural decolonization. Sistren’s brand of grassroots theatre was part of a global postcolonial theatre movement that emerged in the 1970s and 1980s as a cultural practice which both reflected, and participated in, peoples’ struggles against imperialism, oppression, and cultural colonialism, and for self-determination and social justice.⁸

Everything I had read about Sistren before arriving in Kingston in 1996 to begin my fieldwork celebrated the company’s work and its ability to empower working class Jamaican women.⁹ So when I arrived in Jamaica, I was not prepared to find what I did; Sistren was no longer the vibrant, radical, and powerful theatre company I had read about in articles and interviews, rather they seemed to be struggling, artistically and administratively, to stay alive. What eventually became clear was that throughout the twenty-five years of the organization’s life the economic and cultural transformations wrought by processes of globalization had had paradoxical effects on Sistren. This essay argues that the varied forces of globalization are responsible for Sistren’s continued existence as an organization yet also for its diminished efficacy and depth of community engagement. Moreover, this essay argues that...